Archives

Much is being written these days about organizational storytelling – using stories in the course of the workday to communicate key ideas. I couldn’t be happier about this. When I first started in sales I couldn’t stand the idea of rattling off a bunch of product feature & benefit information while a customer just stood there. Fortunately, I had some fantastic storytellers to learn from who helped me to see how much more effective storytelling is than most other forms of sales (and business) communications.

While I often think about the ways that the Church (big “C” church – churches, para-church organizations and other ministries) can learn from the marketplace, in this case the marketplace is most definitely learning from the Church. The best ministry leaders have used stories to educate, capture interest, and provoke imagination for thousands of years. And of course, no one justifies the value of powerful stories as much as Jesus himself. The fact that he used parables as his key means of communication shows that stories don’t just help uscommunicate – they are a chosen means by which God translates his immense and infinite wisdom into bite sized nuggets that we can understand.

Thankfully, fifty-slide PowerPoint presentations are out. No one wants to be bullet-pointed to death every time someone else wants to offer up an idea. Stories make complex things simple, are highly memorable, and can be introduced into light banter, turning a presentation into a conversation. For a great article about how to begin thinking about using stories (particularly from a brand perspective), check this great article at Brandchannel.com. It’s story time!